Sophia Loren

Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress.

With a career spanning over 70 years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of classical Hollywood cinema and is one of the last surviving major stars from the era.

Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone was born on September 20, 1934, in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Kingdom of Italy, the daughter of Romilda Villani (1910–1991) and Riccardo Scicolone Murillo (1907–1976).

Her mother was a piano teacher and aspiring actress, her father a failed engineer who worked temporarily for the national railway Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.

Loren claimed in her autobiography that he was of noble descent, by virtue of which she is entitled to call herself "Viscountess of Pozzuoli, Lady of Caserta, a title given by the House of Hohenstaufen, Marchioness of Licata Scicolone Murillo".

Loren's father refused to marry her mother, leaving her without financial support.

Loren's parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938.

Scicolone did not want to formally recognise Maria as his daughter.

When Loren became successful, she paid her father in order to have her sister Maria take the Scicolone last name.

Loren has two younger paternal half-brothers, Giuliano and Giuseppe.

Romilda, Sofia, and Maria lived with Loren's grandmother in Pozzuoli, near Naples.

During the Second World War, the harbour and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the Allies.

During one raid, as Loren ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel and wounded in the chin.

After that, the family moved to Naples, where they were taken in by distant relatives.

After the war, Loren and her family returned to Pozzuoli.

Loren's grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their living room, selling homemade cherry liquor.

Romilda played the piano, Maria sang, and Loren waited on tables and washed dishes.

The place was popular with the American GIs stationed nearby.

Loren is also the only remaining living person to appear on AFI's list of the 50 greatest stars of American film history, positioned 21st.

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age 16 in 1950.

During the 1950s, she starred in films as a sexually emancipated persona and was one of the best known sex symbols of the time.

At age 15, Loren as Sofia Lazzaro entered the Miss Italia 1950 beauty pageant and was assigned as Candidate No. 2, being one of the four contestants representing the Lazio region.

She was selected as one of the last three finalists and won the title of Miss Elegance 1950, while Liliana Cardinale won the title of Miss Cinema and Anna Maria Bugliari won the grand title of Miss Italia.

Sofia Lazzaro enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the national film school of Italy and appeared as an uncredited extra in Mervyn LeRoy's 1951 film Quo Vadis, when she was 16 years old.

That same year, Loren appeared in the Italian film Era lui... sì! sì!, in which she played an odalisque, and was credited as Sofia Lazzaro.

In the early part of the decade, she played bit parts and had minor roles in several films, including La Favorita (1952).

Carlo Ponti changed her name and public image to appeal to a wider audience as Sophia Loren, being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Märta Torén and suggested by Goffredo Lombardo.

Her first starring role was in Aida (1953), for which she received critical acclaim.

She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career.

Her film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples.

Loren's performance as Cesira in the film Two Women (1960) directed by Vittorio De Sica won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for a non-English-language performance.

She holds the record for having earned seven David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964, for which she was nominated for a second Oscar); Sunflower (1970); The Voyage (1974); A Special Day (1977) and The Life Ahead (2020).

She has won five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Loren met with her father three times, at age five, age seventeen and in 1976 at his deathbed, stating that she forgave him but had never forgotten his abandonment of her mother.

At the start of the 1980s, Loren chose to make rarer film appearances.

In 1991, she received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.

Since then, she has appeared in films such as Prêt-à-porter (1994), Grumpier Old Men (1995), Nine (2009), and The Life Ahead (2020).

In June 1996, Loren was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (OMRI).

She returned in 2001 as president of the jury for the 61st edition of the pageant.

In 2010, Loren crowned the 71st Miss Italia pageant winner.